Psychological Zucchini
by Mord225
Summary: In a world trying to rebuild a boy is called back to the home he was sent away from nearly a decade ago. There he will find more insanity and terror than he ever imagined possible. Based on the Eva manga because writing TV Shinji would cause me to put a shotgun barrel in my mouth and pull the trigger with my toes. I need stuff to actually happen. M for Gantz related shenanigans. AU
1. Prologue

**Chapter 1: Prologue**

**Or**

**In the effort to make Evangelion's setting tolerable I may have gone too far in some places. You tell me that life was hell after Second Impact then I will make it fucking hell and damn the consequences it has on word count or story flow.**

"We're home!" Shinji's cousin Akio announced as he and Shinji walked through the front door of the Ikari household. There was a dual call of "Welcome Home!" from the living room and kitchen as they deposited their outside shoes and put on their indoor slippers. They walked by the living room where Shinji's maternal Uncle Minoru was enjoying his day off by lounging on the couch and watching the evening news.

On the television a news crew was going over a long line of laid out bodies covered by blankets, a quick count showing around 17, and 4 heavily scarred, muscled, and scowling men in handcuffs kneeling by them under guard by U.N. soldiers. It then cut to a panning shot of nearly three dozen naked, skinny, and in many cases mutilated people being wrapped in blankets and carefully escorted away to large U.N. trucks waiting nearby. At the bottom of the screen the words "SURVIVALIST CAMP RAIDED" appeared, as the camera now went over a collection of rusted and worn rifles, handguns, knives, and a couple grenades laid out on a blanket with more being carried over from somewhere off-screen.

Shinji's eyes left the T.V. and followed his cousin down the hall to their shared bedroom, Akio throwing his backpack on his bed and leaving as quickly as they entered. Shinji took the time to unpack his bag and set everything that couldn't stay out where it needed to go on his dresser. Eventually he pulled out a blank essay paper, the neat columns of squares giving plenty of space with which to write the given assignment in the required word length. He stared at the starting words of "My dream for the future..." and sighed after a few moments of silence.

This assignment was supposed to have been short, simple, and finished in class with students handing it in to the teacher as they left for the day. Shinji had been the last to do so having barely even started as the other students began filing out at the end of the last period. And his teacher had not been happy with the essay after giving it a quick skim. Shinji had written that he did not have any kind of dreams or ambitions, no sought after career or profession planned, and that all his life things had happened as they had to happen so it didn't matter if he lived or died because what happens happens.

His "homeroom" teacher, a short man in his early 40s missing two fingers on his left hand on top of the... traditional mutilations that came from being a slave to a gang of Survivalists, gave him a fresh blank copy and told him to take the assignment seriously. "No woe is me shit okay?" he said before telling him to finish it by tomorrow for a late grade. "If you ain't got no plan for the future and expect to be a Rat then I suggest you skip it and just go Waster. Save time waiting until a food shortage makes the decent folk drive you out." His teacher had said to him before shooing him away.

Shinji picked up a pencil and left his room with the essay paper, heading towards the kitchen. On his way his passed Akio who was chewing on a piece of jerky. "You got mail." He commented as he passed, not stopping or swallowing to make his message clearer. "_From a girl!_" He sang. In the kitchen his Aunt Haruka was drinking tea and reading a well worn book at the kitchen table.

"You got mail Shinji." She said as she reached out and tapped a letter from a "Misato Katsuragi" lying next to her without looking away from her book. "Got a girl's name on it. What have you been up to young man?" She asked as Shinji walked by and took the letter, mumbling something about how it was probably just junk mail designed to get him to open it and see what it was selling. The fact that both their and the return addresses were handwritten was just another sign to trick him into opening it.

Reaching the sliding door to the backyard he opened it and stepped out onto the patio, sliding on some sandals that were kept nearby for walking around the garden. Closing the door behind him he walked out passing the vegetable patch where they were growing a variety of things, the coop the chickens retreated to as he got near, and their pair of nanny goats that he stopped to pet before they tried to eat his essay paper and letter. He doubted his teacher would accept "our goats ate my homework" as an excuse although that never stopped Akio from trying.

Uncle Minoru and Aunt Haruka had the study room built for him a little over a year ago, just before he and Akio started "Junior High" classes together. It was a simple shed with a window on the side to let in some natural light and air so it didn't become too stuffy or hot inside. Inside there was simply a desk for Shinji to work at, a chair to sit in, a shelf to hold books of whatever subjects he was studying, a kerosene lantern to study at night with, and tucked in the corner a rolled up bedroll.

Shinji rarely ever slept out in his study room. He only did so that time he was sick and had to be quarantined or on the nights when he forgot the time and didn't go back inside before everybody else went to bed. But he typically had little reason to go back out after going inside for dinner or dropping off his dish and silverware when he ate out in it. He could knock on the doors and windows until someone woke up to let him in but he didn't want to bother them, like they didn't bother him asking when he was going to come inside.

Shinji walked into his study room and threw the blank essay paper and letter on the desk, not bothering to take his sandals off for the concrete floor or bolt the door shut before he sat down. This probably wouldn't take too long. Pushing the letter off to the side he stared down at the words "My dream for the future..." and began tapping the eraser end of his pencil against the paper, trying to think of an answer. His teacher clearly hadn't appreciated his honesty so now he would need to come up with a convincing lie.

Town Guard? He doubted he had it in him to deal with the problems between Townies and Rats let alone when crazy Wasters came in causing trouble. And their jurisdiction didn't just cover the Town itself but nearby farms and maybe smaller U.N. special interest camps or zones they didn't have the troops to defend.

Bounty Hunter? He'd have to go _far_ out of the Town and U.N. safe zones in search for his targets. That was Waster or, gods forbid, Survivalist territory. He liked his body parts still attached and not being a slave.

Scavenger? Again, going far out of the safe zones. Besides after nearly 15 years there wasn't much left that could be salvaged that hadn't already been so they mostly came back with food, either picked fruit and berries or hunted animals with their hides. Had to be careful what you killed though, if it was an endangered animal and the U.N. found out...

Soldier or Mercenary? Hahahaha! Get killed here by Japanese separatists or get shipped off to some other country by the U.N. to get killed by their separatists. Bad enough he would probably have to deal with that for 2 years during his compulsory service in the U.N. army when he turned 16 if he couldn't give them a good enough reason to not take him.

Public Servant? If he messed up, somehow made people think he was corrupt, or was just in charge when things went real bad he'd be swinging from a street lamp courtesy of an angry mob. At least the U.N. would probably crack down on whatever Town he helped run/had killed him.

Monk? Shinji made the customary donations to the gods during festivals and at the local shrine but he wasn't going to dedicate his life to any of them. Neither the old of Shintoism or the new that some Waster cults worshiped. Besides... the local priest wasn't very fond of the Ikari family so he'd have to probably join some other sect or whatever they were called. And some of them got... weird. That warrior monk who came to speak to class in his robes with his shotgun and teeth necklace was pretty chill though.

Farmer? While they were in high demand they had to defend their land from Wasters, Survivalists, and wild animals with just their farmhands and whatever mercenary protection they could afford with help sometimes being hours or even a day away.

Teacher? As if he had any insight or advice to give anyone. He was a 13 year old boy whose sole positive trait was that he was good at school, given a little time to study of course. Amazing. Plus, his teacher would just assume Shinji was trying to kiss his ass.

Doctor or Scientist? As he said he was only good at school with some studying and no subject medical or scientific really... spoke to him. Besides, there was enough scientists in his family.

Entertainer? He didn't know how to play any musical instruments, couldn't sing, would occasionally trip over himself while dancing, wasn't funny, and didn't feel like stepping into a fight ring to get hit for a living.

Businessman? There was somehow still a few big corporations around, usually running Company Towns inside whatever intact industrial sectors they could find, and nothing really stopping a person from starting their own business. Although what the hell he would sell or do was lost on him.

Tradesman? Same with businessman. They were certainly in demand, especially mechanics and repairmen who could fix and maintain the salvaged and aging machinery that was all around them. Tailors too, new manufactured clothes were expensive and hard to come by so having someone who could fix major damage or even make some locally was great.

Engineer? Uncle Minoru got plenty of work trying to make the ruins of the world livable again, their own Town was just a small safety zone on the edge of a crumbling city that the national railway ran through. Every year they expanded and he helped plan and focus on making what they absorbed workable, sometimes even going out of town to meet and discuss plans for the greater recovery of the former nation of Japan.

...Yeah, that last one could work.

A short while later Shinji had a completed essay going over how he dreamed about helping rebuild the world, keeping as much of the Pre-Hammerfall world alive as possible. He even put in a little something about seeing the large crumbling skyscraper in the center of the city outside the town safety zone cleaned up and restored and serving as a symbol of Humanity's resilience and all that good stuff.

Honestly the way Uncle Minoru talked about it the building would probably be destroyed when they finally got around to it, he often said it was a miracle that it hadn't collapsed already, but his teacher didn't need to know that. If you read between the lines it also seemed rather sweet that he was following in the footsteps of his Uncle who took him in after his Father aban-

Shinji pushed the finished essay away, leaned back in his chair to stare at the ceiling, and sighed. After a quiet minute pointedly not thinking about his past he resumed his normal sitting position and his eyes fell on the letter pushed off to the side. Reaching over he grabbed the letter and looked it over, noticing the return address in Tokyo-3 and how "Misato Katsuragi" had drawn a heart after her name. With a roll of his eyes he tore the envelope open at one of the ends and reached in to pull out what was inside.

Compared to the overgrown ruin that the Ikari family lived in the city of Tokyo-3 sounded like something out of a movie or story. A city built up fast after Hammerfall instead of being slowly restored or left to rot. Rumors said that the skyscrapers just rose right up out of the ground! It was a modern city made to survive another Hammerfall and the horrors that it wrought. A fortress city designed after the most successful Survivor Conclaves, or Towns as they were now referred to as, with defenses to fight off any army, shelters capable of protecting all of its nearly 2 million citizens, and enough food rations stored to feed everyone for months or even years!

Just the thought of so many people living in one place made Shinji's head spin. What was Japan had an estimated population of 23 million so a little over 8% of its people called it home. There was also "the GeoFront", a massive underground chamber with forests, fields, a lake with fish, animals, and somehow natural sunlight that was to serve as a way to someday recolonize the irreparably damaged parts of the world.

The fact that it was where his Father supposedly lived and was Shinji's home before he joined his Uncle's family, back when it was called Hakone, had nothing to do with his interest.

Shinji only found a single photo inside the envelope, presumably of the sender Misato Katsuragi. The first thing that he noticed was that she was young, early to mid-20s if he had to guess. If he was right she'd have been around 7 to 11 when The Hammer of God came down, surprising as many children didn't survive it along with the elderly. The only way they survived was if their families took care of them and that meant they had to be physically with them on Hammerfall as it would have been next to impossible to find them for years after it.

Some were lucky enough to find people to take care of them but a lot of groups dropped those who couldn't contribute or were drains on food. Most had to be driven off but there was a good number of elderly who chose to starve to death or wandered off with just the clothes on their backs instead of being burdens. It was better than what some groups did to those who couldn't pull their weight to get some… use out of them or keep their hideouts secret.

Of course his generation didn't have it any easier for a few years after Hammerfall. A lot of babies died without medicine if they weren't just abandoned due to lack of resources or mutation from radioactive fallout or suffered more… unpleasant fates. They were all very lucky to have survived this long they were repeatedly told so in school and by other adults. The really bad stuff was over by the time they were old enough to realize what was going on around them. There hadn't even been a Town overrun and enslaved by Survivalists in Japan in 5 years!

But back to more pleasant matters as the second thing Shinji noticed was that this woman was hot as hell.

His eyes trailed up her long legs, bare due to the denim hot pants she wore, over her wide hips and slim waist to settle on a pair of very large breasts contained in the blue and white striped bikini top she was wearing. She was bending forward at the waist and smiling at him with one eye frozen in a wink as she raised a hand in a peace sign with the other braced against her knee. She had long and flowing deep purple hair, a strand of which fell down over her shoulder and hid her right breast just a bit, and her open eye revealed a dark brown color.

With a flushed face and growing erection Shinji decided that if this was Misato Katsuragi then she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.

With almost a start Shinji realized that there were words and even a lipstick kiss on the photograph along with a really nice car that Misato had apparently been posing in front of. "To Shinji: I'm going to pick you up so please wait for me! P.S. Note the cleavage!" The post script was written above the lipstick kiss, which Shinji unconsciously trailed his thumb over gently, and had both an arrow pointing to the mentioned cleavage and another drawn heart following it.

Confused Shinji flipped the photo over to find a set of written instructions on what trains to take at what stations and when, starting at his local station and ending at one inside of Tokyo-3. After that was another post script: "P.P.S. I work for your Father, Gendo! He wants to see you ASAP! I'm not trying to kidnap you I swear!"

The photograph slipped from Shinji's limp fingers as his body felt like it was plunged into a pool of cold water and fell to the desk. Beautiful Misato was now winking and throwing a peace sign up at me.

* * *

We won't meet for a while

* * *

"...Why?" I whispered to myself quietly, my soft tone breaking the silence that had descended since I finished the essay. I stood, the wooden chair legs scrapping loudly against the concrete floor, as I backed away from the table and leaned against the opposing wall. I took deep calming breaths and closed my eyes, trying to ease the icy grip that my heart was in as my hands shook. "Why? Why now?" I asked no one as I brought my hands up and wiped the cold sweat from my face, wiping it on my pants. When did it get so hot in here? It's hard to notice such things when I've... stepped away. "It's a lie, a trick. It has to-"

"Yo Shinji!" Akio announced as he threw open the door to the study room and leaned in, looking towards the desk. "Mom wants to kn-" He stopped and looked around until he found me leaning against the wall, taking deep breaths, sweating, and looking a bit flustered. "The hell is wrong with you?"

"Noth-nothing." I stammered, righting myself up and trying to make a dismissive hand gesture. I should've bolted the door shut! "What... what does Auntie want?"

"She wants to know if you're eating dinner in here or with us tonight." He finished as he stepped into the study room, pulling on his shirt to fan himself. "How do you sit in here all day man? What are you even doing out here?" Not waiting for me to answer he closed the door and began walking over to the desk, spying the piece of paper, envelope, and photo on it.

"Nothing!" I exclaimed as I pushed myself off of the wall, my skin going cold as I watched my cousin make a beeline for the photograph. "Just some homework!" I rushed forward to try and grab the photo but Akio dived for it when he saw me, a wide grin on his face.

"Who is this?!" He asked mockingly as he picked it up and jumped back from my grasping hands. "Is this your pretend girlfriend?! She's pretty! Damn man look at those tits!" He shouted as he ducked and dodged around my attempts to get the photo of Misato back. "I knew you were always jerking off in here man! Thank God I missed it though!" He laughed as I tried to pin him against the wall and he pushed me away, the chair knocking over in our struggle.

"I wasn't jerking off!" I shout in denial as I grabbed his wrists and we began to struggle in the center of the room. "I've never even seen her before! She was in the letter!" I begin to explain, struggling to bring both of Akio's wrists together to hold them with one hand so my free hand could yank the photo out of his grip.

"Huh?" He made a confused noise as leaned his head forward and began to read, unable to bring the photo closer due to our fighting. "...Oh, no way. There's no way you did!" He looked at me disbelievingly, our feet scuffing across the concrete floor as we struggled. "Shinji I will take back every bad thing I've ever said about you if you did!"

"Did what?!" I demanded to know, growing frustrated with this wrestling match. I wasn't a physical person and Akio spent a lot more time outside getting into trouble and rough housing with his friends. If he wasn't as entertained about the whole thing it probably would've been over very quickly. Plus there was the ever growing chance of Aunt Haruka coming out to see what was keeping him and I really didn't want a repeat of my first week with this family.

"Please, please oh please, tell me that you used all of your saved up allowance money your Dad has been sending to buy a hooker through the mail!" He exclaimed and I went stock still in shock, just gaping at him. "She's a lot prettier than the local girls I'll give you that!"

"No!" I shout as he uses my momentary distraction to wrench himself free of grasp, pushing me away and against the desk. "Why would I do that?!"

"Uhhh, to get laid?" Akio answered like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "She's fine man... can't really tell if she's got a good ass though..." He muttered to himself as he flipped the photo over, as if expecting to find a shot of Misato's behind. My blood went cold as I saw his eyes read through the instructions and the post script that had upset me so badly. "...Ah." He said quietly as he took a step forward and handed the photo back to me. "Well… she promises that she ain't trying to kidnap you."

"Yeah, I really buy that the person who sent this letter is a woman let alone looks like this." I say sarcastically as I drop it back on the desk, face down to look at the instructions on the back. "Someone is just messing with me. Probably some guy from school." I muttered, picking up the knocked over chair and setting it back upright by the desk.

"Who would do that? You got a bunch of enemies we don't know about?" Akio asked skeptically. Our "school" was a small re-purposed office building with, due to room size, only 4 mixed age classes of roughly 14 students each, 3 for "Junior High" and only 1 for the few "High School" students that didn't decide to find work, stay at home with their new babies, or get drafted into the U.N. army.

With just over 50 students everybody was aware of everybody else, especially the one kid who didn't have any friends, stayed in class during lunch, and when you tried to interact with him he acted "all high and mighty because of his good grades". So my cousin would know if I had any enemies. "Besides, who even knows your Dad's first name? It is Gendo right?" He asked.

…Damn, he had a point there. We didn't bring up my Father… ever really and I was pretty sure that barely anybody at school knew my Father was even alive.

"Why would anybody want to kidnap you anyway? Why now? Is your Dad suddenly important or something?" Akio continued, putting his hand to his chin in thought.

"I don't know." I answered honestly. I didn't know… anything about my Father other than his name and that he was a scientist, specifically a Metaphysical Biologist like my Mother had been. I barely remembered what he looked like… I'm pretty sure he wore glasses and walked with a crutch last time I saw him when he dropped me off with my Aunt and Uncle.

"Mom and Dad never complain about your Dad failing to send or falling short on the money. Even when we had to move here or they asked for more there was never any trouble from him either." He continued aloud, bringing up our moving to this Town during the last big rebellion against the U.N. about 4 years ago when the fighting came a bit too close to our old home.

I remember us being loaded up on a big truck with a couple other families with what we could carry in the middle of the night, the echoes and flashes of explosions coming from over the dark hillsides. As we left we passed a couple U.N. army vehicles including a tank with a gunner on the machine gun that looked no older than 15 if my memory served but it was hard to tell in the dark. I hope he lived, he made it through Hammerfall as a child so it would suck to die in a war right after it.

While in a refugee camp a few weeks later we learned that our old home and much of the Town had been reduced to rubble. We had lived on the ground floor of an old convenience store using curtains to create makeshift rooms as the upper floors and office belonged to other people. So the U.N. relocated us here and we started living in what was once a small arcade that we at least had to ourselves. A real step up all things considered.

Not wanting to live forever in a re-purposed ruin Uncle Minoru and Aunt Haruka came up with an easy way to get money to put towards buying a reconstructed home in the newly secured suburbs: they would demand it from my Father. They sent a letter saying that as I got older the expenses to take care of me increased, a growing boy needs more than the food rations the U.N. deals out for everyone and all that, and he should send a moderate amount more.

Which he did in the next payment with no note or letter giving his thoughts on the matter.

So they waited a while and after a few more payments they asked for another increase.

They got it, again no note or questions.

They did this two more time before they decided that they were pushing it and stopped. I should probably be angry but after we moved here and Aunt Haruka got the vegetable garden going and bought the chickens and our goats any complaints I had disappeared. I remember the first time I got to have fried eggs, fresh vegetables, and goat's milk and eventually cheese and chicken to go with our rations. Once other people moved in and started setting up their own gardens and livestock our table was packed with traded and purchased fresh food.

"He's got plenty of money so he has to have an important job… unless he's become a singer or rock star or something." Akio mused aloud as I tried to mentally conjure an image so ridiculous. "If she does work for him then she's probably his secretary or something, handles appointments and sending out messages about things he doesn't give a crap about." He reasoned and I tried to not react to the idea of my Father finding me worthless for it was a long familiar one. "…You think he's doin' her?"

"Ugh! I don't know!" I shout disgusted that Akio's mind went anywhere near the subject of my Father's sex life. "Why would you ask me that?!"

"Hell man your Mom has been dead for, like, 10 years this year right? If he ain't even looking for a new woman by now then something is wrong with him. Hey!" My cousin answered before suddenly shouting. "What if she's gonna be your new Mom?! Like they're gettin' married and she wants to bridge the gap between you two and meet her new Step-Son to play Mommy and stuff." He said as he jumped to a wild conclusion that left me stunned for a moment. "He may not even know she sent this!"

"No wait! He's dying and you're going to inherit all his money so she's tryin' to make a move on you to get it! That's why it's a sexy picture!" He took a step forward and spoke seriously. "Don't fall for it Shinji. She'd make a hell of a trophy wife but she'd probably want to stay and live cushy in Tokyo-3."

"And I heard that they try and live like it was before The Hammer of God there so she'd have to treat you like a little brother or something in public instead of as her man and probably wouldn't share." I continued to stare at him in silence as he gave his advice. "But if you get enough money and stay here you could probably get 3 or 4 girls lookin' to live easy, like what Mr. Saito next block over has got going on."

"…Akio, get the hell out of my room." I say calmly after listening to his crazy ramblings long enough. I try and think of how I normally handle these situations when I'm... stepped away and it just sort of... happens. I don't really listen to myself. "And you should really learn to keep your odd ideas to yourself. You don't do yourself any favors the longer you go on with them, they make you sound like a crazy idiot."

"…Alright." He said with a scowl after a moment of silence. "I'll leave you alone in your jerk off hut." With that he turned and opened the door to walk out of my study room, leaving me alone as I sat back down at the desk. I looked down at the name of my Father, who I had not seen in nearly a decade, and the promise that this wasn't a attempt to kidnap me, for whatever nefarious reason.

This was too much for me, already I could feel the icy dread settling upon my skin as I thought of possibilities and what I would have to do for each. I closed my eyes and sighed deeply.

Akio had tired me greatly with his interruption… I needed to step back for a while.

* * *

I'm sorry, Auntie… Uncle… I won't get into fights anymore.

I'm sorry. I'll be a good boy from now on.

* * *

Shinji opened his eyes as he looked down at the photo, carefully going over what was written once again. He was being silly, he was worrying about something that was outside of his control now that he calmly thought about it. Uncle Minoru and Aunt Haruka were his guardians so the decision on what to do about this fell to them. If they wanted to finally be rid of him then they had their chance and if they felt that this was a load of bull then they'd keep him until… well, until something else happened. Probably when he and Akio got drafted by the U.N. army.

Picking up the photo and letter he got up out of his chair and left his study room, crossing the garden quickly to reach the kitchen door. He stepped inside to find Aunt Haruka rummaging around the cabinets, hearing him enter she turned and frowned.

"Shinji! Akio said that you never answered him about dinner! And what took so lon-" Shinji walked up and wordlessly handed his Aunt the photo of Misato and moved to sit at the dining table. This was in their hands now. "What the hell is this?" She asked as she examined the photo. "…Oh, Shinji you didn't!" He rolled his eyes as his Aunt came to the same conclusion her son did. Why would he show her that he had bought some time with a prostitute? So he could explain to her why he needed so desperately to go to Tokyo-3 tomorrow?

"Honestly, as if you have any idea what to do with a grown woman." She said as she curiously flipped the photo over to the back and found what was written there. "…Oh. Minoru!" She called for her husband as she flipped over the photo again to look at Misato, now going over every detail to try and learn anything she could.

"…What?" Uncle Minoru asked as he walked into the kitchen, pushing his thick rimmed glasses up. "They finally found that big Survivalist camp up North an-" His summary of what Shinji assumed the news was talking about was interrupted when his wife handed him the photo. Unlike his wife and son Uncle Minoru didn't make any exclamations as he calmly read what was written on the photo, his face barely changing as he flipped it over to read what was on the back. "Well, she promises she isn't trying to kidnap him."

"Oh and you believe her?" Aunt Haruka asked sarcastically.

"Didn't say that. She could be trying to kidnap him and be stupid enough to think that promising she won't is convincing. Plus, 9 ½ years is a hell of a time to suddenly ask for Shinji back. I figured Gendo moved on from playing Father and wrote him off as a monthly expense. I doubt he would pay a ransom just to keep paying us." Uncle Minoru responded as he eyed Misato's body, Shinji's shoulders slumping slightly at his Uncle's thoughts. "No scars... Makeup, surgery, or clever body positioning?" He asked Aunt Haruka for her opinion.

"Neither. She's probably an air-headed rich girl who rode out Hammerfall safe and snug due to her Daddy's money. Doubt she's ever seen anything worse than a week old dead body. Not even torn up but a clean kill. Even you have seen worse." She answered, gesturing to Shinji which was certainly true. "If she does work for Gendo then she's probably his secretary and if she doesn't then she's the pretty face of whoever wants Shinji."

"…There's no phone number." Uncle Minoru noted which Shinji, first in a state of lust and then panic, had missed when he originally looked over the photo. "They gave no way to contact them except by sending a letter back. Why?" He asked, sounding genuinely confused.

"That is odd. If there was a number then Shinji could call and get some sweet nothings whispered into his ear by some woman to help convince him to go." Aunt Haruka commented as Shinji blushed at the idea of this Misato woman whispering… anything really into his ear even over the phone. "And we don't know Gendo's phone number, only the return address the money comes from which," she pointed at the letter in Shinji's hand, "is not that."

"Speaking of money," Uncle Minoru said before he looked at Shinji with a questioning look, "was this all that was in the letter? No money or train tickets?" Shinji answered that the photo was all that was inside. "So they expect Shinji or us to foot the bill on getting him there and possibly back."

"So we have a photo, not a proper letter, that just says "I work for your Dad, he wants to see you, here's where to find me tomorrow, and I'm not going to kidnap you" with no proof for any of that, no way to quickly contact them to ask questions, and no money or tickets provided to get him there." Uncle Minoru summarized, tapping the photo against his free hand as he thought. "Whoever sent this, working for Gendo or not, is either really bad at their job or doesn't want Shinji to actually come. If it's the latter then I have no idea why."

"I do, to screw with Gendo!" Aunt Haruka theorized with a smirk. "Can you imagine what it's like working for that man? I'd take any chance I could to make his life harder."

"That'd be a good way to get your ass fired quickly." Uncle Minoru responded with a smile. "And I suppose sending a picture of herself in a bikini top and cut off shorts somehow also screws Gendo over?"

"Hey, she could just be a freak like that." Aunt Haruka answered, her smirk getting bigger. "Although that right there is a pretty good reason to not send Shinji." Shinji couldn't really agree with that sentiment.

"I figured she was trying to seduce him." Akio interjected as he entered the kitchen from wherever he had gone to after storming out of Shinji's study room. "Like Uncle Gendo is dying and Shinji's going to inherit all his money so she's tryin' to get a slice."

"…Hmm, that is certainly a possibility." Uncle Minoru said after he and Aunt Haruka spent a quiet moment thinking. "We haven't heard from him in nearly a decade so who knows what his health is and he's never failed sending money for Shinji. What was it he was doing last time we saw him?" He asked as he turned to his wife. "He was a Metaphysical Biologist like Yui but also a director on some project right?"

"I don't remember or care." Aunt Haruka answered with a sneer. "All I know is that he's got money that he sends to us to take care of Shinji and that he and that bitch Yui turned us away during Hammerfall." She spat as Shinji managed to not flinch at the venom in her words.

There was a reason that the Ikari household did not have any photographs on the walls of Minoru's younger sister and Shinji's Mother Yui or her husband. Pre or Post-Hammerfall.

That being first to deny them shelter in the Hakone safe zone when The Hammer of God fell, with Aunt Haruka being 2 months pregnant with Akio and his Mother 1 month along with him. Only to then, years later after they settled into a stable Survivor Conclave, have to his Father show up to beg that they take him in due to his Mother dying under… unclear circumstances.

Considering what his Aunt and Uncle had to do to survive and keep Akio safe until that point Shinji was sure that it was only the social pressure of being the newcomers who had to somewhat behave or get kicked out that stopped them from killing his Father on the spot. If their story was accurate then Shinji had to admit that his Mother and Father had pulled a… pretty big dick move. Shinji had seen people killed in duels in the streets for far lesser slights over recent matters, let alone what happened during Hammerfall.

"Anyway what are we going to do?! Do we send Shinji or not?!" Aunt Haruka demanded, perhaps a bit angry at old and very unpleasant memories being brought up. "We both swore we'd never step foot in that city again except to spit on their graves, which if Gendo is dying may be soon, but I'm not doing it a moment sooner without a damn good reason." Apparently making sure that the nephew she had raised for nearly a decade did not get kidnapped was not one of them.

"…You boys are taking survival lessons in school right?" Uncle Minoru asked after a moment in contemplation which Akio and I both nodded in confirmation to. The curriculum of rural Japan had taken on a far more practical mindset than anything from before Hammerfall according to the adults. It was created with a simple idea behind it: "No more dead kids", too many had died on their own during Hammerfall and the stability provided by the U.N. was only a few years old and not trusted.

Along with general studies like the old days there was lessons on Marksmanship where you learned how to safely operate firearms, just firing .22s for now, and correctly identify gunshots by caliber and distance. They also learned First Aid and what to do when you had insufficient medical supplies, which they were told to assume would be always. There was also Hunting, Gathering, and Cooking where they got to go outside the Town safe zone and into the nearby woods with professional Scavengers to learn tracking, trap making, edible and medicinal plants, and how to prepare food with simple campfires.

The teachers had described it to the parents as "basically a field trip but with armed guards ready to kill anyone who stumbles too close." Shinji chalked this up to Pre-Hammerfall Japan apparently being safe enough where you didn't need guards or weapons outside of your Towns. Very odd.

"They teach you boys how to use knives yet?" Uncle Minoru asked and we both nodded again. Right now knife training was basically just learning how to hold it, sharpen it, and where to stab the straw dummy as hard as you could. Twisting the knife once inside the straw stomach was optional but encouraged. There was a final moment of long silence before Uncle Minoru came to his decision.

"…Ehhh, fuck it." He said as he handed the photo back to Shinji. "Go pack a bag for tomorrow with a couple days' worth of clothes Shinji, I'll go get a knife. If someone tries to grab you just scream and shout for help while trying to stab them." With that he and Akio left the kitchen, Aunt Haruka returned to making dinner, and Shinji got up to go to his room. A few minutes into stuffing a duffel bag his Uncle and Akio walked into the room, Uncle Minoru handing him a 6 inch kitchen knife with a handmade leather sheath.

"Your Aunt and I took this off of the first man we killed during Hammerfall." Uncle Minoru explained as Shinji pulled the knife out of the sheath to see how sharp it was. Pretty sharp, they had taken care of it at least. "Our car broke down and he tried to steal it. I picked up a piece cinder block while his back was turned and caved in his skull, left him face down in a ditch filling with rainwater due to The Flood just starting. Needless to say the bastard drowned." Shinji thanked his Uncle and promised to return it.

"You'll be fine Shinji. You're the son of a bitch and a bastard after all." Uncle Minoru assured with what Shinji guessed was supposed to be encouragement. "Maybe while you're there you can visit your Mother's grave. …I'll go get you some money for your trip, don't spend it on anything other than train tickets." With that pairing of recommendation and order he turned to exit the room. "And if the directions start leading you into a bad neighborhood than just quit and come back."

"What would a bad neighborhood look like in Tokyo-3?" Akio asked, having heard the same amazing stories about the city that Shinji had.

"Well if it's just like a Pre-Hammerfall city than it would look a lot like our neighborhood." Uncle Minoru answered.

"But we live in the nicest part if town!" Akio exclaimed. Which was true, they lived a hell of a lot better than the Rats in the cobbled together metal shacks waiting for the safe zone to expand so they can go squat in an actual building and still be Townies instead of Wasters. Hell, the Ikari household had a brand new TV, its own garden, and livestock! They were practically rich!

"Yup!" Uncle Minoru answered with a sad smile, probably remembering everything that had been lost nearly 15 years ago. With that he left their room, leaving Akio standing half and half in the doorway and Shinji to resume packing. There was a long moment of silence until Akio spoke, making Shinji turn to look at him.

* * *

Your Dad… killed your Mom, right?

* * *

The image of Akio standing half and half in a doorway while I packed to leave, potentially forever, was so similar to my first few days with this family, who as far as I knew back then I was being dumped forever with, that for a moment I was 4 years old again. We were back in the convenience store of the first Survivor Conclave we lived in, the walls replaced by large thick curtains hanging around the main room. He was dressed in dirty rags while I wore crisp and clean clothes, coloring on the floor with crayons which he had never seen before outside of dirty and worn books for children.

He had asked if my Father had killed my Mother in an experiment because he had heard Aunt Haruka say that was what had happened to their neighbors. In anger, for what I don't remember… maybe defending my Father's honor, I attacked him and had to be pulled off of him and smacked down by Aunt Haruka. A really good first impression.

"I'm sorry what was that?" I asked, lost in my memories.

"Just said that it's going to be weird if you leave for good." Akio repeated, looking at me with an expression I had a hard time reading. It was certainly one he didn't use often. "I don't even really remember what it was like before you showed up…"

"…Probably not going to happen." I said, turning away from him. "I'll probably stay there for a few days and talk about… stuff. Then come back here and nothing will come of it. Or get kidnapped." I said glumly. I wasn't going to get my hopes up. "All this means is that I'm going to miss a day or two of school. It's just annoying is what it is."

"Yeah, well," Akio said as he looked around before he turned to leave, "don't let your Dad kill you like he did your Mom." And with that he left me behind to finish packing.

"…Yeah." I said to myself as I went to the closet and picked out shirts. It made no difference to me if I lived or died, what happened would happen whether I liked it or not so there was no point in getting worried about it. It wasn't like death was even that big of a deal, 50% of Humanity died in the first month of Hammerfall and now 15 years later we were still dying with a world population dwindling, or "stabilizing", to around 13% to 15% of what it was when The Hammer of God came down.

If I died tomorrow then nothing would really change for anybody. Uncle Minoru and Aunt Haruka would stop getting money that they honestly could do without now and would have to find a use for my study room. My Father would stop sending money that apparently he had more than enough of. That was it.

With that cheery thought I stuff the last of my clothes into the bag and crawl onto bed, staring at the ceiling until dinner is called. I'm silent during the meal although that is not unusual but so is Akio which is. After brushing my teeth I lay back in bed until bedtime, waiting for the electricity to be shut off around town to save power and give the machines at some far off ruined power plant the chance to be maintained. With the town plunged into darkness aside from lit lanterns and the flashlights of the patrolling Town Guards I look up out the window at the sea of stars before I drift off to sleep.

* * *

I dream of my Mother.

I can't see what she looks like, I can only hear her voice and see her larger hand holding my tiny hand as she leads me around some playground. I'm sweating and panting in the heat, no cool breeze to alleviate me.

"Are you hot?" My Mother asks softly and I make a sound that more or less means yes. "Before you were born there were many seasons, not just Summer." My Mother explained as we stopped walking under the shade of a tree. "In Spring everything would bloom and in Autumn the leaves would all change color. But my favorite was Winter, when everything would be covered in snow."

"Snow?" I asked, not understanding what any of this meant.

"When rain gets very cold, it freezes and turns into snow." She explained. "Its pure white and piles on top of everything. It's very beautiful."

"I like rain!" I say, mostly because rain is usually cool and right now I really want to be cool.

"I'm glad." My Mother says after she chuckles for a moment, squeezing my hand. "Not many older people like rain anymore. Before you were born there was The Flood. When The Hammer of God came down on Antarctica all the snow there and the water in the ocean around it disappeared and went into the sky." She explained as if I had any idea understanding this. "There they became clouds all over the world and it started to rain all over the world. It didn't stop raining for three months, can you imagine that Shinji?"

"No!" I say astonished. That would get really boring, I wasn't allowed to go out and play in the rain very much.

"When it finally stopped for just 2 minutes one day everyone in our neighborhood ran outside to stare up at the clouds. We all looked very silly with our mouths hanging open looking surprised." She laughed quietly at the memory.

"Daddy too?" I ask, having a hard time imagining my Father looking anything other than stern.

"Oh, yes. Daddy looked especially silly." My Mother answered and I laughed. "Three months later the clouds parted and we saw the sun for the first time in half a year, again for only a few minutes. And then three months after that you were born." She ran her thumb over my tiny knuckles. "There wasn't a cloud in the sky on your birthday. The first sunny day since Hammerfall. I like to think that's when it ended."

"I wish the sun would go away right now." I whine as my Mother kneels down in front of me, the hat I've been wearing hiding her face as I stare forward at her blue dress.

"Shinji… Mommy wants to show you Winter one day." She says quietly and very serious. "And Spring and Autumn too. But Mommy can't do it alone, she'll need a little helper." She takes my other hand into hers, holding both of them in front of me. "Someone to protect Mommy against monsters, like a hero."

"M-monsters?" I ask nervously, looking around for any of them hiding nearby.

"Yes, and some of them may look like people. I have no idea what they'll look like or what they can do." My Mother said calmly. "Will you be Mommy's little helper Shinji? So that I can show you all the seasons and the snow just like it was before you were born?"

"Ummm." I hesitated as I tried to think about what my Mother was asking me to do. Monsters were big, scary, and mean, they ate little kids like me! But heroes in stories were cool, had superpowers and cars and gadgets, and everybody liked them because they made people safe. Maybe that was why Daddy was always so stern and busy? Because he was taking care of the monsters after Mommy? He was Daddy so of course he was protecting Mommy from anything bad that would hurt her! If I helped Mommy then maybe Daddy would be happier too!

"Okay, I'll help you Mommy." I agree with a smile that gets bigger as she leans forward to hug me.

"Thank you Shinji, you've made my decision so much easier," my Mother says warmly as she hugs me tightly, "but you have to promise me that you'll remember this. So you're ready to help me when the time comes."

Before I can say anything I'm being shaken awake by Aunt Haruka.

I get up, have breakfast, shower, brush my teeth, and dress for my trip, the dream slipping from my mind as it had done so many times long before I walk out the door with my bag for the train station.

**Next Time: Shinji gets on a train to Tokyo-3. Will he get off of it? Probably not with the way I write. If he does then find out if I can come up with a reason for Shinji to be alone like he was at the beginning that doesn't have to do with an automatic midday train to a major city with no crew or other passengers to stop him from wandering off during a state of emergency. (That shit was so odd it made me think Shinji was a clone of Gendo)**


	2. Welcome Home Shinji

**Chapter 2: Welcome Home Shinji**

**Or**

**I continue to make things needlessly difficult for myself with world building that won't matter for probably dozens of chapters, if ever, and will actively make battles harder to pull off in the future. You think that positron rifle shit is going to happen with Ramiel here? With the way I've set things up I wonder if the entire nation of Japan can even power a single Eva let alone that gun.**

Before Shinji could head to the train station he had to make an offering to the gods, praying for safe travels and their favor in battle if that could not be provided. He and Akio left together, walking in silence as always, heading for the center of their Town where they would split up. People passing the boys on their way to work gave him odd looks as he was certainly not dressed like he was heading off to school or work. Not to mention the bag he carried and the knife tied to his waist.

Given that this was a potentially important meeting with his Father, the first he had in nearly a decade, Shinji had decided to wear his nicest shirt, pants, and he had given his shoes a quick scrub of any mud and dirt. And it was for that reason, his Father should see that he was doing fine without him if not without his money… and if when this Misato woman picked him up she thought he looked nice then that wouldn't be so bad either. Unless this was a kidnapping plot in which case Shinji would feel like an idiot.

The Ikari boys left their neighborhood quickly enough and crossed over a small river that separated it from the more urbanized district that served as the bulk of their Town. Where once the entirety of the town had been enclosed by a wall of metal and concrete, cutting off streets and alleyways to have fewer entrances and exits to guard, now the safety zone was far too large. There had been talk lately of tearing it down but most people didn't want too, they liked having something they could retreat behind in case things went bad.

So they walked along the outside of the wall and buildings, windows and doors long since barricaded or fortified, that made up the outer edge of the center of the Town until they came to one of the gates. The street was only two lanes wide so the gate was just two large solid steel sliding gates that met in the center and could be barred closed together. The flanking walls covered the sidewalks and extended into alleyways that allowed the gates to slide safely into them when it was opened all the way like now.

The Town Guards, armed and posted by the sides of the gate and on a fire escape connected to a nearby building, greeted people as they entered and left, nodding at the Ikari boys as they entered. The streets were crowded in the early morning as people either went to work, set up shop, carried out chores, or, if they were Rats, just lazed around and searched for trouble. Akio, seeing one of his friends leaving his home in an old fast food joint, left his cousin without a word as he typically did when they walked to school.

The bulk of their Town was made of such abandoned and now repurposed buildings. Everything was taken; offices, nightclubs, a clinic, bars, mahjong parlors, restaurants, arcades including the Ikari's old home, karaoke clubs, a police station, cafes, apartments, massage parlors, stores of every kind including a sex shop, and even a bowling alley.

A lot of them had been changed into housing or something else, like Shinji's school which was an office, the bowling alley was now a giant brothel which Shinji and Akio were to stay far away from or risk Aunt Haruka's wrath, or the dogfighting arena that used to be a daycare center where you could watch crazy Wasters fight vicious dogs to the death with just a small knife for prizes. A lot failed. But some of the structures kept or had recently returned to their original purpose, like the police station, the clinic, and the shrine Shinji was going to.

He made his way into more or less the exact center of the Town where on a wide street a park and a shrine lay on opposite sides. He avoided looking at the park where on the constructed platform in the center a body was hanging and on display, gently swaying back and forth. The face was covered by a bag to hide the bloat of death after a few days and a sign hung from his neck reading: "Rations Thief".

Justice out here usually came in one of 4 ways: hard labor, lashings, banishment, and death. The first two were usually something you could choose between, either work clearing rubble in the ruins for a couple days or weeks or get some whips to the back in public. Banishment came with a branding on the face so that no other Town would take you in, you were essentially doomed to be a Waster. Worse actually because they typically were allowed into Towns if they behaved. Death is pretty self-explanatory, done by hanging usually although you can make a request to change that.

There were some exceptions like that time a Survivalist scouting party got too close for comfort. They had cut the heads off of the lower ranking ones, put them on poles around the Town perimeter, and crucified the scout leader facing out towards the mountains they were seen coming from. Took 5 days for him to die but they Survivalists were supposed to be tough. The leader of the main party was impressed and opened up trade for a short while but the U.N. frowned on such arrangements so the Town got what little they wanted and cut ties.

Apparently there used to be these things called "prisons" before Hammerfall, there was even one to the East that a bunch of Wasters lived in apparently. Shinji had no idea why you would give food to criminals and let them sit around all day instead of just getting it done quickly with a whipping. There were cells at the police station but those were to hold people for a day or two until they were punished.

He set his bag down on a bench and walked up to the shrine; an island of trees, grass, and wood in a sea of concrete, pavement, and metal. He went through the standard praying motions; purify self with incense in pavilion, approach the shrine proper making sure to not stand directly in front of the offering box, gently drop a U.N. 5 Credit coin into the box, ring bell, bow twice, clap twice, pray that he reach his destination safely and that if he needs his knife it doesn't dull on the flesh and blood of his enemies before they are dead, and finally one more bow.

Turning away Shinji began to quickly walk away, pleased that he had managed to make his prayer without running int-

"Ikari." A deep and gravelly voice said as a senior and dour looking priest rounded the shrine, glaring at his frozen form.

Fucking damn it.

"Hmmm, the Clean Ikari." The elderly priest growled as he approached Shinji slowly. Shinji tried not to look at his limping walk or his wooden right leg from the knee down. "…Clean as far as I know at least. Why are you here, Ikari, and dressed so finely and with a weapon?" Shinji explained that he was leaving to meet his Father in Tokyo-3 and had asked the gods for protection. "Hmmm… I doubt an Ikari would need divine protection… or deserve it. I know your family does whatever it takes to survive after all."

He tapped his wooden foot on the ground once to make his point.

Shinji would admit that by all accounts Hammerfall was a nightmare of almost unimaginable proportions.

On September 13, 2000 a comet, later named The Hammer of God, so small and traveling so fast that it seemed to appear from nowhere struck Antarctica and blew it sky high. The tsunamis generated by the earthquakes from the impact destroyed _everything_ on the coasts in the southern hemisphere, some of the waves even reached as far up North as India.

This was accompanied by the pieces of the landmass being launched into orbit and coming back down. Those landing in the oceans made more tsunamis while those hitting land caused earthquakes and volcanic eruptions on top of vaporizing everything nearby (R.I.P. Sydney). Even today some of those chunks are still up there but they usually burn up on reentry and if they do land somewhere it's unlikely they hurt anybody due to there being a lot less people for them to hurt.

Sensibly, pretty much every country with nukes had decided that then was a good time to use them.

It would take too long to go over who nuked who in order as that would be just a long list of everybody against everybody with some countries getting obliterated off the face of the Earth (R.I.P. China). Now with pretty much… every major city destroyed by nuclear fire or tidal waves people started to notice that it was getting pretty cloudy… everywhere.

And then it started to rain.

And then it didn't stop raining.

That was the end of the first week into Hammerfall and the beginning of The Flood.

As it turns out several months of constant rainfall and cloud coverage fucked up a lot of stuff. All of the crops drowned long before they died without sunlight, basically every dam ever constructed broke under pressure and flooded countless towns and valleys, and the sea level started rising and didn't stop until it was 60 meters higher than before submerging everything, including entire cities, on what was the coasts. Not that there was many people on the coasts as they all fled inland or out to sea long before.

If there were any government left anywhere they collapsed by the end of the second week, if not into civil war than roving bands of soldiers taking anything they could. With the existing food depleting, crops drowning, floods everywhere, radioactive fallout poisoning the land, and livestock being stolen and slaughtered in mass within a few weeks people killed over the tiniest morsel of food and went into the wilderness to hunt down any animals they could. After they had exhausted the pet stores and zoos of any animals that weren't released in desperation of course.

Not that those who fled to sea did any better with fishing. Before their very eyes all the oceans across the Earth slowly turned to the color of blood, starting from where Antarctica used to be and spreading outwards. Nothing lived in those waters, unless it had members in an aquarium somewhere that hadn't been eaten like the zoo animals then those species went extinct like so many land animals. The people who fled to sea returned once their supplies ran out, those who still could anyway, finding the situation beyond desperate.

With what food there was left being hoarded inside of Survivor Conclaves who drove out anyone from their territories without mercy those outside turned to the only plentiful source of food they had left: each other. Cannibalism became rampant and in that madness people formed into hordes, bound only by the consumption of human flesh and cruel warlords, who overwhelmed Conclave after Conclave. They consumed both the food they had stored away and the inhabitants with equal fervor and desperation.

Shinji knew this all too well because for two months Uncle Minoru and Aunt Haruka had been a part of one.

After his Mother and Father had denied them shelter in Hakone his Aunt and Uncle had fallen in with lots of groups, each growing more desperate and crazy than the last. 4 months after being turned away by his parents their current group was attacked and destroyed by a growing horde of cannibals who gave the survivors a simple choice: "Eat or be eaten", offering them the cooked flesh of their comrades.

Obviously they joined in their business until a month before Akio was born when they overheard talk about… plans for him when he was born. Shinji wasn't sure how they managed to escape with Aunt Haruka being 8 months pregnant and hardly mobile but they had done it. After that they "went straight" and survived by gathering edible plants that were returning with The Flood over and sunlight slowly returning. They also earned some from a few of the Conclaves for work, typically dangerous scavenging for Uncle Minoru or... entertainment for Aunt Haruka with those who found her pregnant form appealing. They eked out this existence for years, raising Akio and keeping him safe in the wilderness and ruins of civilization until one of the Conclaves decided to let them in after proving how useful they could be.

At which point Shinji's Mother promptly died and his Father dumped him with them.

When they were relocated to this Town a few years ago things had been fine at first, his Aunt and Uncle working and demanding more money from his Father to buy a nice house. Then the priest came to their home at the arcade and made a big scene about how he knew that Uncle Minoru and Aunt Haruka had been members in a cannibal horde. Namely the one that had cut off and eaten his leg before his friends staged a break out. He claimed that he had seen Uncle Minoru eat some of the meat and declared all of them, except Shinji, Unclean.

Uncle Minoru challenged him on the spot to a duel to the death for his family's honor and good name.

Now the priest was old where Uncle Minoru was still in his mid-30s, had a wooden leg where he had all his limps, and had possibly never killed anyone where, if his stories were to be believed, Uncle Minoru had killed 4 men. After seeing that nobody was going to back him up on this the priest had backed down and muttered that their family would forever carry the stain of their sins and blah blah blah. Uncle Minoru for his part said that the only thing the priest had to worry about eating him now was termites. Aunt Haruka laughed.

"Maybe your Father has come to his senses and decided to take you away from such poisonous influences." The old priest mused. At first Shinji assumed he meant his family but then the priest gestured out to the town around them. "Tokyo-3 is said to be like the old world, a Clean city. I'm sure your Father has not dirtied the family name and blood as his brother has." Shinji politely informed the priest that his Father actually took his Mother's name so he and Uncle Minoru had no blood relation. How blood got dirty went unasked.

Along with the question of if the priest thought anybody except him gave a crap about this. The reason nobody sided with him during the confrontation years ago was probably because if you judged one person about what they did during Hammerfall it meant that anybody could be judged. And pretty much everybody did shit that was rather damning, even if they never killed plenty of people knowingly stole supplies that caused others to starve or die from sickness. If you had a grudge about shit from back then, fine, but don't get others involved.

Besides, his backing down at the threat of a duel REALLY hurt his standing in everybody's eyes. Which now that he thought about it, why was he standing here listening to this? He had a train to catch and either a very attractive older woman or a kidnapper to meet.

Turning away from the old priest Shinji made an appeasing and halfhearted comment about how he'd try not to bring anymore shame to the Ikari name during the two or three days he'd be there, if even that. Because he knew the old priest would _just hate it_ if people other than him were shit talking the Ikari name. Ignoring the priests muttering about how disrespectful the young are these days Shinji turned and walked away from the shrine, picking up his bag and continuing on his way to the train station.

The walk was uneventful and soon he was walking out another gate, the Town Guards posted at it asking where he could be going since school was the opposite direction but they offered no real trouble. A short walk out of the walled center of the Town he found the main reason that it was brought under the fold of the U.N., the train station.

The U.N. needed to keep supplies flowing between their Towns, be it food, salvage, or raw and refined goods. They preferred to use trains because it was harder for Wasters and Survivalists to rob or derail a train than it was for them to attack caravans or convoys and they couldn't steal the train like they could with cars. Then they'd just become Road Warriors and attack more caravans and get more cars until they had a fleet, usually armored and modified. How they found parts and equipment, let alone gasoline, was a mystery.

Shinji walked past the U.N. office, with a big white square and the blue letters "UN" painted on it, where outside a man with a few guns and a lot of knives browsed the bounties posted. He was the only person around as the food rations wouldn't be coming for a few more days, then this place would become packed as everyone showed up to claim their share. Free food was pretty much everyone's reason for joining the U.N., that and the fact that they tended to eradicate towns that said no to doing what they were told.

The U.N. was rebuilding the world and saving the Human race from an age of darkness and ignorant savagery.

You didn't get to say no to helping with that.

Shinji finally came to the ticket booth and bought his ticket for the first stop on the list Misato had provided. He informed the teller that he had a knife on him so that the conductor and guards wouldn't throw him off if he was searched and his ticket didn't declare that he was armed. He boarded the train which was sparsely populated, most of the other travelers armed like him from what he could see, and sat down to wait, stowing his bag under his seat.

Soon enough they announced that they were leaving, the guards went around checking tickets, and armed themselves with submachine guns before they took their posts at the front and back of the train cars. As they departed Shinji sighed, feeling a weight in his stomach he hadn't noticed before disappear.

This was it.

No going back now.

Shinji watched the passing countryside for a while, counting the rusting cars and trucks pulled off to the sides of the cracking and weed infested roads that had been left there years ago until the tracks left the roadside and went off into the mountains alone. He noticed the guards tense up and after a moment he saw what was bothering them.

Every dozen or so meters in the trees flanking the train tracks was a Waster standing and watching them pass by.

They were those broken but not killed by Hammerfall, and their children too of course. They were lean, ragged, and almost always naked, if they wore anything it was rags, armed with everything from sharpened sticks to bows and arrows to swords, knives, and spears stolen from stores and museums long ago. There was even a rifle or two held by those who looked to be the biggest and strongest of the bunch. A lot of them were scarred but not many seemed to be missing limbs or fingers or eyes from what quick glances Shinji caught. Hard to survive out here with any kind of disadvantage besides insanity.

They watched their passing train disinterestedly as if this intimidation tactic, if that was what this was, bored them. As if they wished they could just put up a sign that said, "You're in our land now Townies. We're watching you.", and go and do something else. But that wouldn't have been nearly as scary.

Turning away from the window Shinji decided to just close his eyes until the next stop.

* * *

The rest of Shinji's trip was rather enjoyable.

There was sometimes a long wait between trains at stations so he took the opportunity to explore the first other Towns he'd been to since he was 9. They were more or less the same, one of them had a truly unbelievable number of slaves though and he had no idea how they kept them all from rebelling and going Waster. In another he was approached by a prostitute a couple years older than him asking if he had been made a man yet and after nervously explaining that he had neither the time nor the money she vanished.

A pair of men nearby laughed and after thinking that they were laughing at him they explained that he had just avoided getting lured away, his ass beaten, and having everything of his stolen by the girl's brother. Apparently they did it to visitors a lot and the locals weren't too big on stopping them. So Shinji felt pretty good about not falling for it as he went back to the train station and planted his ass there until the train came.

He decided to have lunch on the train, breaking open a U.N. food ration and using the tiny plastic spoon that came with it to scoop out the various colored nutrient pastes that came in little cups. It tasted like ass, except the red stuff that tasted like piss, but growing up in a home where the adults once became so hungry they turned to eating people he learned to eat what was given to him. Luckily he brought a piece of jerky to go with it. Hopefully his Father would bother to feed him for however long he was meeting with him.

At least nobody on the train knew about his Aunt and Uncle's actions during Hammerfall, every time he or Akio ate jerky at school someone would say "Oh, Ikari's having jerky! Anybody in town go missi-" HOLY SHIT!

The plastic spoon fell from Shinji's fingers as the train rounded a hill and Tokyo-3 came into view. It… it was so clean! He could tell even from here that none of the buildings were collapsing or ruined messes with caved in roofs. Like those skyscrapers! They had all their windows! There wasn't as many as he was told or as tall but that was fine! And the size of it! Even from this hill he couldn't really see the other end, it stretched on forever and none of it seemed like it was abandoned space filled with vermin, overgrow plants, and skeletons!

"First time seeing it?" An old woman with an eye patch over her left eye in a dark dress sitting nearby asked with a smile. Shinji turned in his seat to just gap at her, the other two people in the train car other than the guards giving the city a passing glance before going back to reading or whatever they were doing. "Boys and girls your age always act like that the first time. Getting a glimpse of what the world used to look like."

"Well, not really." She shrugged then, looking a little embarrassed. "Back in the old days there wasn't any cities where the skyscrapers went underground or the streets opened up to reveal elevators to take down trucks or giant gun emplacements that popped up out of nowhere. …Odd, that they're down now though. …There wasn't a notice about testing that today." She muttered to herself before Shinji asked her to clarify about the "skyscrapers going underground" part.

"Oh yes! They lower into that "GeoFront" thing that all of the NERV boys and girls work down in. You'll probably see a few of them walking about just… checking things. They wear these tan uniforms with orange shoulders and a blue triangle under the neck so they're easy to spot." Shinji made a questioning look at "NERV". "They're the big secret organization that we're not supposed to talk about but everybody knows somebody who works with or for them. But shhh!" She held a finger to her lips and shushed. "It's a secret!"

Filled with a great many more questions but no idea which to ask first Shinji decided to just continue staring out at Tokyo-3 as they approached it, upending the remaining nutrient pastes into his mouth now that the spoon had touched the dirty floor. Never waste food after all.

Was his Father involved with this NERV?

It would explain why he never made any contact with him, having to keep everything top secret and who knows what he could reveal in a letter to family. It would also explain where he got all his money from, working for a secret organization in the most advanced city in the world had to pay big.

The thing about the money Shinji could see but the never contacting him to not potentially leak information… Shinji couldn't buy that. Not a lot of information to leak in a card that just says "Happy Birthday". Or maybe there was a way but Shinji wouldn't know, he never got one.

As they pulled into the first station inside of the city limits everybody on the train noticed something seemed off. Namely that there was no one at the station waiting to get on which might've not been so unusual if the ticket and newspaper/magazine stalls hadn't been closed down and shuttered. Also, from what Shinji could see of the street from here it was deserted as well.

"Aww, what the hell?" One of the train guards asked rhetorically as the doors opened to the empty station. Everyone tentatively got out of their seats as the guards left to investigate, submachine guns ready. Once one of them got out far enough he craned his head up as if listening to something before he came running back, the other guards waving them all out of the train to hear what he had to say.

"There's a state of emergency apparently." The guard told the assembled crowd of 24 passengers, 7 guards, and 3 crewmen. "It's been going since 12:30." Everyone either checked their watch or looked around to find a clock like Shinji did. It was 12:53 P.M. A general murmur rose up out of the crowd, wondering what could be going on. Was war declared? Was there another rebellion against the U.N.? Was there even enough Towns not under their control and those willing to turn traitor to even attempt something like that again?

"How the hell did you not hear about this? Is there not a radio in the… front part of the train?!" A passenger asked the conductor who nervously held up his hands to the crowd.

"Of course there is!" He reassured. "It's just been broken for a month and a half." What followed was a very loud shouting match between the crowd and the conductor about how difficult it was to get a replacement radio for a rural passenger train that only occasionally came anywhere near a place as important as Tokyo-3. Shinji, not nearly as invested in the possible dangers of the broken piece of equipment like how were they supposed to call for help if they were attacked, decided to just eye the city street outside the station.

There were so many cars!

They were parked on the sides of the streets, against the sidewalks and nearly bumper to bumper with only the occasional gap that another could fit inside. In his town all of the cars were used for trade caravans and convoys, kept under lock and key by the U.N. The only people who had their own were farmers and bounty hunters and they had to take extra special care to not have them stolen by Wasters or Survivalists. And the streets were so new! The pavement wasn't cracking, filled with holes, or had weeds growing in it like back home!

"Well, the announcement says for citizens to head to their shelters." The guard who heard the broadcast, which if Shinji strained his ears he could hear echoing from outside. "Who here actually lives in this city?" About 7 hands went up, including the senior one eyed woman. "Okay, who knows where the shelter around here is?" All 7 hands went down. "Oh god damn it." There was a few moments of debate amongst the guards about what to do.

They decided to make two pairs of guards to walk down both directions of the street, looking for any sign of the shelter for 15 minutes. Because apparently no one thought to put signs pointing to the nearest shelter at the train station of all places. Bit of an oversight. If they found the shelter then great. If they found nothing then they'll do it again but go out for longer and branch off. If they found looters then they'd shoot them and leave a note for the Town Gua- police. This was a proper city like the old days so they had police.

Sighing, Shinji looked around as people began to mill about the station. Well, this was quickly turning out to have been a waste of time. He was two stops from his final destination, the monorails obviously weren't running, there could be a war on, and even if he could get to the meeting point he doubted that Misato or the kidnappers would be there patiently waiting for him.

With nothing better to do he wandered over to the payphones and picked up one of the large and heavy phone books attached to it. He highly doubted that the phone numbers of like, 1.8 million people if he remembered correctly, could fit inside of it but it couldn't hurt to browse. When he was done he would try to call home and tell Aunt Haruka that he may be coming back home this afternoon depending on how long this lasted. He didn't have enough money to stay the night anywhere if he couldn't contact his Father AND get a train all the way back tomorrow…

Let's see… Gendo Ikari… no such luck. There were a couple Ikaris but it wasn't like it was an uncommon name.

How about… Misato Katsuragi… no again. Well that would explain why she didn't give her phone number on the photograph. Be hard to do that if you weren't a real person. Certainly put some weight behind the kidnapper theory.

"Fuckin' bullshit!" A fellow passenger at a nearby payphone, a man whose tank top revealed a nasty scar running up the entirety of his right arm, shouted as he angrily hung up the phone. "Fuckin' phones just redirect to some computer bitch saying she's sorry but you can't make calls during an emergency!" Well there goes calling Aunt Haruka then. With that shot Shinji makes his way over to a bench and sits down, holding his bag in his lap as he settled in to wait.

"I don't believe I learned your name young man." The old one eyed woman from earlier said as she wandered over to him. Shinji politely introduced himself, giving his full name and what Town he currently called home. "Well you've come a ways by yourself." She said before giving her own introductions and sitting down next to him. He noticed the hatchet she set down next her, the edge sharp and clean but there was long dried blood on the handle.

"It's always strange seeing boys and girls your age traveling these days. Back in my day we allowed it because bad things happening were rare but now with things 1000 times more dangerous we still let you because we know you can take care of yourselves." She mused. "We used to think you're all just big kids. Then Hammerfall came along and… well…" She pointed to her missing eye to emphasize her point. "We all learned that lesson real quick. …So, what brings you to my town dressed so nice?"

Shinji for the second time that day explained that he was meeting his Father to a senior. "Oh, that's lovely. Where were you supposed to meet him?" He then explained that he was actually to meet with a woman who worked for his Father two stations away. "Oh, your Father must be a busy man then. What does he do?" He gave a cautious answer that he was a Metaphysical Biologist, something that he had only learned a few years ago when Uncle Minoru casually mentioned that was his parent's shared profession.

"Oh," the senior lady said, her previously warm attitude diminishing somewhat, "a Soul Stealer and Monster Maker then. Well… this would be the city for someone like that to find work. Probably for that NERV… who knows what they're doing down there below our feet."

Metaphysical Biology was not the most popular of the scientific fields even before Hammerfall. Born during World War 2 when invasive medical experiments primarily by the Germans and Japanese discovered evidence of what the common person would call the "soul".

There was a lot of brouhaha during the following decades between the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union to be the first to separate and then contain a living soul from a living body as souls deteriorated almost instantly upon death. That and make something like a nuke that created some kind of field or signal that just destroyed organic life by destroying souls so important infrastructure would be left in intact. Thankfully they never got around to figuring that out or Hammerfall would have probably killed even more people.

His Aunt and Uncle had described it as "sort of like The Space Race except instead of putting monkeys into rockets they were trying to rip their souls out."

After the Soviets had succeeded in the late 70s, managing to hold the soul of a Chimpanzee named Catherine for 5 solid seconds in a specially generated field after her body was reduced to its base components by _another_ specially generated field, then came the decision of what to do with the souls.

This split into two paths. The first was focusing on cloning bodies identical to the original and sticking the souls into that to try and achieve some sort of immortality. The second was making some crazy bullshit creatures by fucking with the souls while they were contained and growing new bodies around it with a lot of the base components created when removing souls.

There was limited success with each and by the time of Hammerfall as far as anybody knew nobody had succeeded at either. Although there had been well publicized and highly protested attempts. Actually a lot of Metaphysical Biology's history was filled with protests and more drastic actions like bombings and assassinations for pretty much… everything they were doing.

Shinji had learned all this right after Uncle Minoru offhandedly mentioned his parents shared occupation years ago. He did so by trying to find any books he could find from his school's meager library, his town's slightly less sad public library in the former sex shop, and asking his Aunt, Uncle, and neighbors what they remembered.

If his Mother did die in one of his Father's experiments he wanted to have some idea of what could have happened.

After learning everything he did if there was a body in his Mother's grave he'd be surprised. She probably got reduced to a orange puddle of her base components.

Happy thought.

"I'm sorry." A man in his early 40s apologized as he walked up to them, Shinji noting the revolver holstered on his right hip and that he was one of the other passengers that raised his hand to show he lived here. He had short light brown hair and a scar running from his right eye, a deep brown, to his right ear. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop but you said that your name is Shinji Ikari correct?" Shinji answered affirmatively to the man.

"Your Father wouldn't happen to be named Gendo would he? And you said he's a Metaphysical Biologist?" Shinji, in shock and surprise, nods yes. "Wow, if we're talking about the same person then your Dad is one scary motherfucker." He smiles, teeth clean and straight, as he puts his hands on his hips. He stares at Shinji's face for a moment longer than he's comfortable with. "You even kinda look like him." He says quietly before he smiles a bit wider. "Who's the woman that's going to pick you up? I might know her too!"

Shinji tries to move his hand to his sheathed knife without drawing attention to himself as he answers the man's question. "Misato Katsuragi?! You don't say!" The man says happily. "Purple hair, brown eyes, and figure like this?" He asked as he made an hourglass shape with his hands. Shinji said yes to all of it. "Well, you got to be his son for her to be the one comin' to pick you up."

"Excuse me sir but who are you?" The older one eyed lady asked, making her presence known once again. "And how do you know of this young man's Father?"

"I'm a bartender." He answers, not looking at her but continuing to watch Shinji. Shit. Shit. Shinji never considered that the kidnappers would be waiting at one of the stations they told him to take and get on with him. "The NERV boys complain about him endlessly. About how he's a cold son of bitch and such." He makes a finger gun with his left hand and points it at Shinji, bringing it up away from his hip a bit. "They also talk just as much about that Misato although for entirely different reasons. And she just got here too!" He moved his left hand back to his hip.

Shinji almost immediately noticed that the strap securing his revolver in its holster on his right hip was unfastened now.

Fuck.

Fuck shit.

"Man," the man says slowly as he shakes his head, "what are the chances that I would run into someone like you comin' home from visiting my Momma?"

Out from the city came a deep rumbling that came closer and closer until the very ground beneath them quaked. Everyone at the train station began to panic as the guards yelled for everyone to calm down, everybody trying their best to remain on their feet. Looking outside at the city Shinji saw towers rising up over the buildings, giant guns atop them and pointing towards a nearby mountainside. Soon the rumbling stopped and all across the city there were gun towers of various types quietly waiting for some order.

"What the hell? Why are the battleme-" One of the passengers started to ask before the gun towers started to fire as one, the sound louder than anything Shinji had heard in his life. The shells soared over the city towards the nearby mountainside, exploding somewhere Shinji couldn't see. "WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON! WHAT ARE THEY EVEN SHOOTIN- OH FUCK! OH FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT?!" A guard who was outside the station screamed before he saw… something over the mountainside that sent him fleeing blindly across the street and down an alleyway.

Those near the entrance of the station took a few cautious steps outside and Shinji watched the color drain from their faces before they too took off as fast as their legs could carry them. Those left began to panic as a rhythmic thumping got closer and closer.

After a moment everyone made a break for it, either out into the streets, into an enclosed space like the bathrooms, or back onto the train for whatever reason.

As a pair of people ran between Shinji and the man with the revolver he jumped out of his seat and ran with them, clutching his bag tightly to his chest as he heard the man and old lady telling him to stop. Not that he could really hear what they were saying as the explosions got louder.

Dashing out the entrance Shinji made it halfway across the street before he turned to look at what the guns were shooting at and what was making that rhythmic thumping sound.

It was a giant bipedal creature towering somewhere around 75 to 80 meters. It was mostly black with the exception of white bone like coverings in places, particularly its massive shoulders that connected to thin but very long arms. The hands had three very long and bony looking fingers and out of the elbow protruded some red spike. The chest, which looked sort of like an upside down triangle balancing on its hips with its massive shoulders, had a bony… face? It was a bone circle with eye holes and a spike that pointed down towards a large red sphere sitting roughly in the center of the giant creature.

Shinji decided he had no idea what the fuck he was looking at. Was this one of those giant monsters they had in Pre-Hammerfall movies and TV shows? Weren't those supposed to be fake?

But he did know that everything these guns were throwing at it was doing jack shit as it casually strolled forward toward the center of the city, ignoring the shells and resulting explosions as it did so. Also, "forward toward the center of the city" meant it was coming straight at the train station.

Well… they didn't cover this is school but Shinji was pretty sure the answer was to keeping running away as fast he could.

"HOLD IT!" A voice commanded before a gunshot rang out, barely audible over firing of the gun towers, the shells hitting and exploding against the giant creature, and its unstoppable stride forward. "I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE FUCK GENDO IKARI'S SON IS DOING HERE!" Shinji stopped and turned in the street to find the "bartender" from before stalking toward him from the sidewalk with a smoking revolver. "BUT YOU AIN'T GETTING AWAY FROM ME! HAND'S UP!"

Shinji did as he was commanded, holding his hands and bag above his head as the man strode towards him revolver ready. Had… the man actually not expected him to be here? Was this not a planned kidnapping but one just sprung on him? As Shinji's mind raced with the approaching kidnapper and giant monster another quake struck the city, sending both the man and Shinji nearly stumbling. Far down the road opposite the approaching giant the street opened up as something equally gigantic rose up out of the ground.

Oh great, another one.

Standing far down the street attached to some kind of structure that appeared out of the street was a metal, purple, and bright green monstrosity. Far closer in shape to a human it appeared to be covered head to toe in purple metal with the occasional dash of green. It shared having ridiculous shoulders with the other giant creature although it chose… fin like pauldrons? It also had a helmet that let glowing yellow eyes gaze through and gave it one hell of a chin and a single long horn out of its forehead.

Was that a giant robot? They still made those? Well, Tokyo-3 would be the place for them but still...

The… robot Shinji guessed detached to from the structure that had carried it up out of the ground and it took a single lumbering step forward, Shinji feeling the tremor slightly. Actually… he was starting to feel tremors from the other giant's steps too. The two giants strode towards each other as the giant guns ceased firing, a quiet falling upon the city except for the thunderous steps of the two great monsters.

This was probably a bad place to be right now. Besides the fact that a man was still trying to kidnap him.

"ALRIGHT FUCK THIS!" His kidnapper said as he marched forward and with his free left hand grabbed Shinji's right arm, spun him around, and shoved him back the direction he had originally been running. "WE'RE GETTING OUT OF HERE! MOVE!" Shinji felt the barrel of the revolver jab him in the back. "Run and I blow your guts out!" He whispered harshly down into Shinji's ear.

When they finally crossed the street and reached the sidewalk there was a sharp and quick whistle directly behind them. They both turned to find the one eyed senior woman, her shoes off and socks dirty from the pavement, swinging her hatchet into the kidnappers face.

Shinji had personally seen 6 men killed in his life. Two of them had been public hangings, the ropes properly positioned so that the men were rendered unconscious as they were strangled to death. Two more had been from duels over matters of honor and foul deeds done during Hammerfall, those had been bloody due to the duels being done with knives.

Another had been a Waster that made the mistake of threatening a town guard in broad daylight. The guard, even though he was armed, raised his hands above his head much like Shinji had just done. A second later a shot rang out and the Waster's brains were scattered across the street courtesy of one the town guard snipers. The last was a woman sick with Captain Trips when the Ikari family were refugees between Towns. He didn't like thinking about that one.

He had never been right next to someone taking an axe to the face though.

The hatchet came down on the right side of his face, coming down perpendicular to the man's face scar to almost make a perfect X. Shinji was standing behind the man, who was a full head and a half taller than him, so he got to see the clean and sharpened edge bury itself into the side of his face with ease. The hatchet blade ran from the center of his right cheek up to his right eyebrow, the axe went in until it struck teeth and cleaved itself into his skull with a thunk. Most of his right eyebrow now dangled freely and his right eye was sliced open and seeped down into his opened cheek.

"RAAGHA!" He screamed as his knees buckled in pain, blood gushing from his wound and down the front of his clothes. Shinji was rooted to the spot, his blood going cold as the older woman tried to wrench the hatchet free and the man cried out in agony. He swung his gun hand away from Shinji to try and blindly shoot the woman who was slightly behind him.

The footsteps of the giants got louder, the tremors stronger.

"IT'S STUCK!" The senior woman cried, trying to work the hatchet free. "STAB HIM!" She commanded Shinji who continued to watch over his shoulder as the blood fell from the man's face and began to pool on the ground. "KILL HIM! FUCKING STAB HI-" There was two shots from Shinji's kidnapper and the older woman's face went slack. She let go of the hatchet and took two steps backwards off the curb sending her tumbling into the street, a pair of holes in her stomach.

The footsteps of the giants got louder, the tremors stronger. The cars began to shake a little now.

"Fhuckhing bhitch!" Shinji kidnapper swore, the hatchet still lodged in his face. He collapsed to his knees, staring at Shinji's back with the gun pointed at him. Shinji was transfixed by the sight of the spreading pool of blood and how it began to go around his shoes. His teachers warned them in school this could happen, just being frozen the first time they _really_ got themselves into danger and didn't have their parents there. "Thried to fhucking khillh meh! Fhuckhing bhitch…" His gun hand began to waver and droop before snapping back to attention. "Dhon't mohve… Nheed to… rhest a sehcond…"

The footsteps of the giants got louder, the tremors stronger. The cars shaking now, the windows vibrating and things on display falling over, and it was becoming difficult for Shinji to maintain his balance.

Shinji knew he couldn't just stand there, these two giants were starting to walk towards each other with the intention of "fighting or fucking" as Akio would say and he didn't want to be here for either.

"Dhon't mohve… khillh youh…" His kidnapper spat, blood falling from his mouth but he managed to press the warm revolver barrel into Shinji's back.

If he moved, he'd be shot.

If he didn't move, he'd probably be stepped on or crushed.

Either way he'd die.

But it wasn't like dying was so bad… right? That's what he told himself yesterday after all. That it wouldn't matter if he lived or died.

Shinji looked up and down the street at the strange giants coming towards each other, the purple one seeming to having some difficulty walking for whatever reason. It stumbled every now and then but not enough to send it crashing to the ground.

They'd be on each other in 20… 25 seconds tops.

He took a deep nervous breath and realized that his heart was pounding in his chest.

He…

He didn't…

* * *

I don't want to die!

With only seconds to spare I unfasten the knife tied to me and toss it to my left, where my kidnapper can see it with his one working eye. He makes a confused sound as he looks at it while I, gripping my bag with both hands, twist it and my body right around as fast as I can. With the gun no longer pressed against my back I swing the bag of clothes into the man's face as hard as I can, right onto the hatchet still buried in his face. I hit it hard enough to push it in just a little more.

As he shrieks in pain and curses I drop the bag as it will only slow me down and turn back to run for i-

Where was the old lady's body?

Behind my kidnapper as he writhes in agony there is just an empty pool of blood where she should be. As I stare at it the tremors become so bad that cars are bouncing and setting off alarms.

"MHOTHERFHUCKHER!" The man screams as he brings his revolver up and fires.

I feel something slam into my gut and I have to take a step back, the tremors unbalancing me sending me falling onto my back.

What?

I touch my stomach and feel something warm and wet. When I bring my hand up it is covered in blood. I look down to see a hole in my shirt and a red stain rapidly spreading out from it.

Oh.

Oh no.

I try to breathe and, "AAAGH AAH", my body screams in agony and I cry out, knees pulling up and legs kicking from the pain. I'm gutshot. Oh god I'm gutshot. I remember from school that that is very bad. I place my hands over the wound and try to press down, bunching up my shirt to slow the bleeding. I feel the shirt warm and dampen and I swear I feel the blood flowing over my fingers.

The tremors from giants are so strong now that they send my body bouncing into the air a little bit and back to the ground. "GAHH! HAH GAWD!" It makes me scream in pain. I swear every inch of my clothes become soaked in blood as I am bounced and roll around in my kidnapper's and I's shared pool of blood. If my kidnapper is having the same problems as I am I can't hear him.

Please someone help me.

Someone, someone has to be around to hear me and help.

This is fucking Tokyo-3, one the most populated cities in the world. Someone has to be nearby.

Instead all I get is to see the giant purple robot sprint past, the force of its footstep leaving a crater in the road and causing several cars and me to jump fully up in the air and crash back. "RAAAGHAA!" I scream as the impact of landing makes it feel like my insides were tearing apart a little.

It sounds like the two giants are finally going at it, there's a lot of thunderous banging and crashing that sounds what you'd expect from two giant monsters fighting or fucking, but as my vision begins to blur I find myself not really caring. I'm starting to get kind of cold actually, like all of the warmth is leaving my body. My teachers said that when you're gutshot it can take quite a while to die, if you don't get hit in a big artery of course. I wonder how long it takes when it seems you have been hit in a big artery and your body is being bounced off of the ground every couple of seconds.

It turns out I don't have to wait very long as there is a great big crash and I spy the purple giant's back falling down towards me, having been sent sprawling by the other giant.

Right before it crushes me two things happen.

The first is that I realize that I ended up getting shot AND crushed by one the giants. If I had more time I probably would have laughed.

The second is that my ears are filled with a high pitched buzzing sound.

* * *

I'm staring up at a ceiling suddenly, a fluorescent overhead light buzzing noisily. The ceiling is a plain white and all I hear for a few seconds is the light buzzing and awkward shuffling of a quite a few people.

…What?

I sit up, expecting my body to scream in agony and instead feel completely fine. With suddenly clean clothes, even the bullet hole was gone, I find myself staring at a group of 13 people packed into a small apartment room with windows showing the city at night.

…Night?

Five of them stood off to the side leaning on the wall opposite of the window. Four men and one woman they are relaxed and dressed in… black bodysuits that covered everything but the head? With little metal circles speared out across it? And why were they holding things that look like those toy guns they made before Hammerfall?

"Well look who it fucking is." A familiar voice says and I turn my attention to the main group of eight regularly dressed people gathered together around a… giant black metal ball. Just sitting there in the center of the room. Nobody paying it any real mind.

What the fuck is going on?

"Hey fucking listen to me you little bastard!" The voice says as my kidnapper, face completely fine and unaxed, steps forward and grabs my collar, lifting me off the ground. "Fucking killing me wasn't enough you had to die and follow me here too?!" I somehow notice that the scar on the right side of face is gone.

"Look who's talking!" The older one eyed woman steps forward and shoves him away from me, sending me stumbling back but on my feet. She has somehow lost the twin gunshot wounds in her stomach as well. "You killed me and somehow showed up before me!"

We're dead?

The afterlife is some empty apartment?

…Well I'm happy to know that death isn't that big of a deal, after the whole dying part, this feels… anticlimactic.

"You dumb bastards ain't dead." One of the men in a black bodysuit says, pulling out a cigarette from... somewhere and lighting it. "But you are about to enter Hell."

He smiled wickedly at us and a pit formed in my stomach.

"Or Heaven, dependin' on what kind of mood you're in." The other people in bodysuits all joined him in smiling wickedly at us.

**Next Time: We finally get to the Gantz stuff! Finally! No more world building! For a while! Just straight up gore, sociopathy, dicks, alien monsters, boobs, fights, and immaturity!**

**I want you to think about all the seriousness in these first couple chapters the first time a Gantz Hunter whips his dick out.**

**We could have gotten to this point much sooner if I hadn't bothered setting up a post-apocalyptic setting stealing almost everything or bits and pieces from:**

**Lucifer's Hammer, written by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle**

**The Postman, written by David Brin**

**Doomsday, written and directed by Neil Marshall**

**The Stand, written by Stephen King**

**The Road, written by Cormac McCarthy**


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